


genus strigidae

by sibley (ferns)



Category: Stargirl (TV 2020)
Genre: Falconry, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Owls, autistic characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24947062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferns/pseuds/sibley
Summary: Beth bonds with the owl. And the rest of her team, too.(But mostly the owl.)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 92





	genus strigidae

**Author's Note:**

> You _know_ it's a niche fic when anything you have to do research on isn't related to the biggest information-dumps in it. Now containing my most obvious take yet: Beth Is Autisic.
> 
> I know Strigidae is actually the family Eurasian Eagle-owls are in, not the genus (they're genus Bubo), but I thought genus sounded better for the title. It pained me to write, though.
> 
> [ **CW:** this fic contains non-graphic references to small mammals (squirrels and rats) and insects/arachnids (roaches and spiders) being eaten by a predatory bird, references to past canon character death, and allusions to an abusive home.]

“You can’t have the owl.”

Beth crosses her arms. “If I’m supposed to be Doctor Mid-nite, then the owl is mine, too!”

Mr. Dugan crosses his arms right back. “He’s a wild animal.”

Beth looks around at the big room they’re standing in, all sweeping ceilings and engravings and posters of people she feels like she knows. It’s a little jarring to remember they’re dead when Chuck tells her so  _ much  _ about them every time she looks at a new picture. She shakes her head. “This isn’t a forest.”

“Well, yeah, but he’s got… space to fly, you know?” Mr. Dugan gestures at the wide open space. “I come down here and try to feed him every day, make sure he’s got water, change his towel… I’m sure your house is nice, but I can’t let you try to hide an owl in your closet.”

Beth gestures at the owl. She’s not wearing her goggles, but she made sure to memorize his name, weight, wingspan, favorite time of day to fly, and favorite toys. “I wouldn’t hide him in my closet! He could live in the backyard. We’ve got some nice trees and there are tons of squirrels he could chase…”

“Look, Beth, you know I can’t just let you take a bird of prey home with you, right?” Mr. Dugan sighs. “I can take care of him just fine here. He likes it. You can even come and visit him.”

Beth looks at the owl and hums to herself.  _ Hootie, six pounds, five and a half foot wingspan because he’s male so he’s on the smaller side, loves to hunt just before dawn, and is obsessed with the little rubber dog toy Wildcat got him to see if he’d play with it. _

“What kind of owl is he?” She asks.

Mr. Dugan blinks. He looks at the owl. He looks at Beth. He opens and closes his mouth a few times and tries to discreetly reach for his phone. Beth smiles innocently at him and tilts her head as he awkwardly redirects that attempt to rub the back of his neck.

“A… hooting owl…?” He tries.

Beth’s smile gets wider.

“Hootie is an Eurasian Eagle-owl. They’re one of the world's largest owls and live throughout Europe and in many places in Asia including Russia and are often sighted as far south as North Africa. He should be eating a diet of primarily mammals like feeder mice but in the wild would additionally be hunting large amphibians and ground-nesting birds as well as big beetles like giant cockroaches and sometimes even fish.” She pauses. “I had an owl phase in elementary school.”

Mr. Dugan looks back at the owl.

“...Just don’t tell your parents I was the one who said it was okay to bring him home.”

* * *

“You were such a good boy on the walk home,” Beth praises, carefully keeping her arm steady as she fumbles to unlock her door. The glove on the Doctor Mid-nite costume was _heavy,_ and having a six-pound weight on it only made it moreso. At least it was just on the one hand. “I’m sorry I couldn’t figure out the jesses.”

Hootie warbles. 

_ ‘You’ll get there,’  _ Chuck says warmly.  _ ‘Dr. McNider couldn’t figure them out until Hawkman and Hawkgirl showed him. I will make my instructions more clear next time.’ _

Beth carefully maneuvers through the house, making sure to stick to hardwood floors and tile that’s easy to clean. Just in case. Hootie’s a smart bird, but it’s hard to housetrain an owl.

“Well, are you hungry?” She asks. “Do you want to hunt in the yard?” She pauses. “Oh, I don’t know if I could ethically let you do that… you’re not a native species, you know? You could do some serious damage to the endemic wildlife.”

Hootie slowly blinks his huge orange eyes at her. Beth can practically feel what he’s thinking—that he was  _ promised  _ a chance to fly around the backyard and is  _ not  _ pleased about having that potentially revoked. Especially since Beth didn’t exactly pick up any snacks for him on the way home. She giggles at the clearly affronted expression on his face.

“Well, Red Squirrels are everywhere in the neighborhood, but they aren’t supposed to be found this far West in the state…” She taps her chin as Chuck automatically shows her a slide comparing an Eastern Grey Squirrel to a Fox Squirrel to a Red Squirrel. “So as long as you can tell the difference…”

Hootie warbles again. 

“You’re a smart bird.” Beth reaches toward him with her free hand before hesitating. “Do you… want me to pet you?” She lowers her voice. “Is that okay?”

She knows all his favorite places to be scratched. She knows that he likes it when the real—the  _ original  _ Doctor Mid-nite rubbed his belly in just the right way. But she’s not Charles McNider. She’s Beth Chapel. Mr. Dugan said the owl only really responded to Doctor Mid-nite, and… Beth wasn’t  _ really  _ Doctor Mid-nite, was she? She didn’t even have a doctorate!

He interrupts her self-doubt by stretching his legs and pushing his head up right into her hand. He’s even softer than she’d imagined, and Beth holds her breath as she carefully strokes her fingers over the feather tufts on his head and skims them down the side of his facial disk, skating almost too close to his sharp beak. He coos once more, and Beth can’t help but smile.

“Thank you,” she says, still whispering. It’s  _ right  _ to thank something clearly smart and sentient for bonding with you, isn’t it? If it’s not protocol, then it should be. She takes a careful step back when she’s done, even though he comes with her since he’s still perched on the heavy glove. “Okay. Wanna go flying now?” 

He leaps off the glove the second he’s clear from the back door, and there’s not a doubt in Beth’s mind that he’ll come circling back when he’s done. He lands up the biggest tree in the yard first, hooting to the clouds as the first pink streaks of sunset start spreading across the sky. It sounds almost alien. No wonder people in ancient Europe were so afraid of owls. Especially since ones like Hootie were so big!

She watches him catch a squirrel—Red!—turns away when he starts to eat. She understands the natural order of things without having to see it, thanks. 

When the sounds behind her stop, she gets an idea, mind replaying a clip Chuck showed her earlier that day. After a few more long quiet minutes, while she waits until she’s  _ sure  _ he’s done eating, she lifts the glove up over her head a bit with one hand and taps two fingers against it with her other.

Owls fly near-silently, but she still hears the faint rush of wind just before the somehow already-comforting weight of Hootie’s body settles down on her hand.

Beth remembers that Mr. Dugan had somewhat begrudgingly admitted that he hadn’t left his perch while anyone had been around in ten years until Beth showed up and he flew to land beside her. The grin she can’t seem to keep off her face whenever she’s around something—or in Hootie’s case some _ one,  _ because she doesn’t want to be rude—that used to belong to Doctor Mid-nite gets wider.

* * *

“Beth.” Courtney stares openly at the other girl’s lunchbox. “Are those bones?”

“Mhm.” Beth mumbles something around her bite of pasta. She waves her fork while she chews and swallows. Words and a little bit of pasta come out the second she’s done chewing. “I brought in the first pellet Hootie cast for me! It’s from last night after he ate, and he cast the one from his dinner when I went outside to wake him up, ‘cause it takes them approximately ten hours to fully form the—”

“So the bones are from bird vomit,” Yolanda interrupts. Courtney is now looking anywhere but at the neat plastic bags full of small but still relatively dirty bones. 

“Well…” Beth drums her fingers on the table. “Technically… the definition of vomit is  _ ‘matter ejected from the stomach.’  _ And pellets don’t come from the stomach, they come from an organ called the gizzard, which compacts the indigestibles like bones, fur, and sometimes carapaces so that the owl can regurgitate it later.” She takes another bite of her pasta and shrugs. “I heat-sterilized this one and dissected it in the science lab. I guess Mr. Dugan had mostly been letting him eat rats he found in the JSA hall—”

“You know what,” Yolanda interrupts again, “I don’t think I’m hungry, I’m gonna head to my next period early. Courtney, you wanna come?”

“You have your history class next,” Beth says, confused. “Courtney has Spanish 101.”

“It’s okay, Yolanda.” Courtney tries to smile despite the fact that she is definitely also feeling somewhat nauseous. “I can stay. So, um, Beth, are the goggles… helping you with… the owl?”

“Yep!” Beth reaches up to tap the goggles currently pushed up onto her forehead. “Chuck’s been helping me identify and archive the bones we find. It’s really exciting. It’s like doing a tiny archeology project!” Her shoulders slump a little. “I wish I could tell my parents about it. I bet they’d think it’s really cool.”

“Well, you can, can’t you? You can just say you found the pellet in your yard and decided to dissect it,” Courtney reasons. “They don’t have to know everything about… the owl. Hootie?”

Beth grins. She’s been smiling so much lately, she’ll have to make sure she’s brushing her teeth more than the usual twice a day. “Thanks, Courtney, that’s a great idea.” She scuffles her shoes on the polymer flooring. “You can go now. If you want.”

Courtney furrows her eyebrows. “Why would I want to go?”

“...Because you don’t want to talk about owl pellets?” Beth cocks her head. She keeps tapping her fingers on the table. She’s looked up herself using Chuck more than just the once. It’d been easier once she knew how to actually talk to the goggles instead of just offering her name.  _ Elizabeth Chapel, diagnosed with autism at age two. _ “I know I’m weird and I talk about gross things sometimes. It’s okay to want to go away.”

“I like hanging out with you,” Courtney insists. “I mean, we don’t share very many interests, and sometimes you talk about gross stuff like owl puke, but you’re a really nice person. And you’re really smart and perceptive. And nice. Like, it’s no wonder the owl likes you, right? Because you’re a really likeable and nice person.”

“You said that already,” Beth reminds her. She fidgets with the zipper on her lunchbox. It’s actually more like a bag. Made from recycled plastic! “Twice.”

“Right. Yeah. Sorry.” Courtney leans back in her chair. “That’s what I mean, though! Perceptive! You’re a good friend, Beth. And we’re teammates, so we’re also friends automatically. That’s how it works.” She holds out her hand and Beth pushes up onto her elbow so she can awkwardly tap her fist against Courtney’s palm. “And you make  _ way  _ better conversation than Rick.”

Beth presses her lips together and tries not to smile again. It’s rude to talk about people behind their backs. And smiling at the people who smile  _ back  _ at her so much is hurting her cheeks.

She does gently bump Courtney’s foot with hers under the table, though.

Courtney winks at her. “And hey, you know who I bet  _ would  _ wanna hear about owls? Pat.”

“He doesn’t know anything about them,” Beth says, confused.

“Exactly!” Courtney points her spoon at her. “He needs you to teach him!”

Beth nods to herself as the bell rings. She’s taught herself not to flinch at it by memorizing the exact time it always goes off—forty seconds too early for the hour mark. It does make sense…

“Thanks, Courtney,” she says, but Courtney’s already disappearing into the sea of milling students.

* * *

“Up.” Beth taps two fingers on the glove and cheers a little when Hootie flies to it. “Good job! Here.” She sets a large fat Dubia Roach on the wrist of the glove, petting the top of his head when he snaps it up after following the sound of its legs on the leather. Chuck said he always liked bugs, and Beth had assumed they’d be a nice change of pace from the mammals he’d been swooping after in her yard and the pests he must’ve been eating at the JSA’s hall. “You’re such a good bird.”

He hoots.

“Okay, now let’s try this.” She points her hand up and moves the same two fingers she’d used to point in a circle. “Spy.”

Hootie takes flight, the damn jesses which Beth  _ still  _ can’t figure out how to attach to the glove (no, she can’t just hold them, it’s not practical, and Chuck says there’s already a quick release system for them if she could just work it out without her hands shaking) trailing behind him. He circles the house a few times, and Beth tugs the goggles down over her face.

_ ‘Camera 1 is online,’  _ Chuck says, and Beth jumps with excitement, hands blurring beside her head as she flaps them only to let the gloved one fall back to her side. It doesn’t feel good to use that one. The other one keeps moving, happy fireworks bursting under Beth’s skin as she sees through the first of the two tiny cameras attached to the little vest fitted over Hootie’s feathery body.

“Test camera two,” she says, unable to stop her gloved hand from soundlessly snapping its fingers. “First by itself, then both.”

_ ‘Camera 2 is online.’  _ Beth holds her breath.  _ ‘Cameras 1 and 2 are online. Congratulations, Beth.’ _

A starburst of confetti dances briefly through her vision. She claps her hands even though the metal loops hurt a little. “Alright! We did it!” She spins in a quick little circle. “Okay, turn both cameras off. My parents will be home soon.”

She leaves the goggles over her eyes and holds the glove back up, tapping it once more. She’s barely even opened her mouth to give the _ “down”  _ command before he’s alighting back on the glove.

“You get  _ four  _ roaches for that one!” She scratches behind his facial disk and just under his ear as he snaps them up and he half closes his eyes, a small burbling sound coming from his syrinx.

She pets him and showers him with praise for a few more minutes before glancing back at the house.

“You should go back to your roost. Let me get the jacket off of you. My parents really  _ will  _ be home soon—”

_ ‘You have a text message,’  _ Chuck informs her. She  _ knew  _ it was a good idea to tell him to tap into her phone. It makes everything so much more efficient!  _ ‘From the contact: Mom, heart emoji purple heart emoji heart emoji, to you, Beth Chapel. Would you like me to read it for you?’ _

“...No,” Beth sighs. She droops a little. She can already guess what it’s going to say. “She’s gonna say she’s working late again, right? So I should make myself dinner? And I don’t have to bring anything to her because she already ate?”

_ ‘That is correct.’ _

Beth sighs again and looks at Hootie. He blinks slowly and swivels his head approximately ten degrees to the right.

“Do you wanna go see Mr. Dugan?”

The walk isn’t that far, and it’s still light out,  _ and  _ she has Chuck and Hootie, so she’s not too worried about anyone giving her trouble. A little worried about the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission approaching her and telling her they know she had her best friend/personal AI forge several different falconry-related licenses for her, but that’s all. 

Mr. Dugan, when he sees her standing on her toes to peek into his garage, evidently doesn’t think that’s a good excuse to walk around at night as a teenage superhero holding an owl when there are literal supervillains out for blood around every single corner.

“At least you’re wearing a coat,” he grumbles as he ushers her inside. “Courtney’s out there in nothing but a crop top and shorts. It’s  _ November.  _ Why’re you here? Is someone in trouble?”

Hootie blinks at him and Mr. Dugan steps back. Aww. He’s scared of him. That’s funny. Well, he  _ is  _ pretty big, even if he’d be much larger if he was female… and that was the kind of thing Courtney told her she should tell Mr. Dugan! Stuff about owls so he could learn! There would be so much to tell him if he really wanted to learn.

Oh, right. Question. He’d asked a question. 

Beth shakes her head. “No one is in trouble. But I made this little vest for Hootie, and I put cameras in it, and they actually work! I bet Chuck can code some facial recognition software, and…” Oh. Mr. Dugan does not look excited. Well, that’s okay! She hasn’t even said why it’s going to be useful yet! “And I thought we could use it to track down the Injustice Society! ‘Cause I don’t think anyone would notice if he was really careful even if he’s pretty big. I just hope they don’t realize he’s kind of an invasive species…”

Mr. Dugan looks at the owl, who hoots at him, and then back at Beth. “That’s… great, Beth. That’s really great. You did a good job. That’ll be really useful.” He huffs to himself and mumbles, “I’m glad there’s a way for  _ one  _ of you to stay out of danger.”

It’s good that Chuck can caption and describe things in real time, because otherwise she might not have heard that last part. Beth beams. “Thank you! I’ve been working with him based off of Chuck’s data on how he was trained by the first Doctor Mid-nite.”

Mr. Dugan stands up a little straighter. “Oh really?”

“Mhm.” Beth rubs the fingers on her ungloved hand against the fabric of her sleeve. “...I also came over because Courtney said you might want to learn about owls.”

“...Ah.” He glances at the car he just crawled out of. Hootie huffs at him. “Well… I guess I could listen. As long as I can do my job at the same time.”

Beth waves her free hand and scrambles up into the open bed of someone’s pickup truck, legs hanging down as she makes herself comfortable. Hootie adjusts himself on the glove and Beth pats his head absently as she fumbles for a place to start. It’s one thing to be told it’s fine to start talking and another to know where to begin.

“Well, did you know Hootie was eating a lot of rats at the JSA’s hall? Was that what you were feeding him, or does the hall just have a big rat problem? All the bones I found in his first pellet were rat bones. Chuck helped me sort all of them into bags, they’re in my room at home. Pellets come from the gizzard, which is an organ in an owl’s digestive system. It compacts all the food that can’t be digested! Lots of other birds actually make pellets in their gizzard because most of them have indigestibles as a part of their diet, even if they’re just insect wings. But those other birds have crops, which owls don’t, and…”

She keeps talking at length with Chuck occasionally reminding her of a factoid or two she neglected to say when talking about something else relevant, like prompting her to tell Mr. Dugan that even though owls fly silently largely because of the hooked fringe on the edges of their feathers they traded that for speed so Hootie can’t exactly fly faster than a speeding bullet.

Hootie himself explores the garage. Beth hopes he doesn’t poop on any of the cars, because she doesn’t want their owners to be mad at Mr. Dugan. She watches him nestle into a rafter, poking at a cobweb with his beak as she explains that while only small owls like Elf Owls have diets primarily made up of insects, bigger ones don’t object to a small protein snack every now and then. Hootie especially likes roaches.

Beth’s not sure if Mr. Dugan’s really listening, because he doesn’t ask questions, but that’s okay. At least Chuck is paying attention. And Hootie looks down at her every time she says his name.

“...They’re not really used for falconry because they’re farsighted and…  _ most of them  _ aren’t very smart, so even though Hootie is there’s not a lot of owl-specific gear. I don’t think I could get a hood or anything. I’m not very good at sewing, it took  _ forever  _ to make the vest for the cameras.” Beth pauses to take a deep breath. She’s not sure how long she’s been talking for. “...I can stop now, if you want.”

Mr. Dugan slides out from under the car. “It’s fine. Sometimes you just have to talk about stuff to someone. I get that part, mostly.”

“You get it?” Beth tilts her head. Hootie does the same from his rafter.

“Yeah. I mean, you’re…” He makes a complicated motion with one hand. “Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what that—” Beth pauses as Chuck clarifies for her. “Ah. Yes. I am.” Her eyes brighten and she sits up straighter. “Are you?”

He winces and Beth remembers it’s not polite to ask people. Even when asking would clear a lot of things up. Her parents said it was because a lot of people still thought of autism as a bad thing even though it was actually just… a neutral thing. Not bad or good. It could  _ be  _ bad or good, because it made it hard for her to make friends and sometimes she cried when things were too loud but it also helped her remember a lot of stuff and made it easier for her to figure out problems by spinning them around.

“Um. Yeah. Age ten. Took awhile.” Mr. Dugan claps his hands together nervously. Beth really hopes she didn’t offend him.  _ She  _ wasn’t offended by him asking her, because she’s pretty sure anyone can tell if they’re in a room with her for longer than a few minutes, but it would be kinda silly to ask and then get upset about someone asking back, right? Is that an okay thing to think? “...And if it helps any, I’m pretty sure the  _ first  _ Doctor Mid-nite was, too.”

“Oh!” Beth flicks her fingers excitedly as she turns this new piece of information over in her head. Hootie makes the usual little sad sound he makes whenever someone mentions Doctor Mid-nite’s name. “Chuck, you never told me that.”

_ ‘It did not seem pertinent to any of our previous conversations. However, I understand why it may have been relevant information for you to know, and I apologize for not bringing it up sooner.’ _

“Aw, it’s okay. It’s kind of personal anyway.” She looks out one of the small windows. “Oh, it’s really getting dark. We should go.” She absently taps her glove and braces herself for the incoming weight just in time. “I bet I’m gonna have some real arm muscles soon.”

“Yeah, right, you said you’d been training him.” Mr. Dugan starts wiping his hands on a rag. Just the backs of them, and his shoulder twitches every time his fingernails touch it. Beth understands that. Now that she knows what to look for, she understands what she’s seeing, too. “Have you done ‘strike’ yet? That was always my favorite one.”

_ ‘Strike was an attack command utilized by Dr. McNider during several JSA missions that took place at night,’  _ Chuck comments. A little video of Doctor Mid-nite and Hootie practicing it pops up.  _ ‘It was designed as an aerial attack modeled after the primary offensive moves performed by Hawkgirl.’ _

“No, we haven’t.” Beth can’t keep the excitement out of her voice. Why would she even want to? “Hootie, do you remember that one?”

“I think you have to give him a target. Maybe by pointing? It was really dark out when he did it, but damn—dang, did it work.” Mr. Dugan shrugs.

“I’m a teenager,” Beth reminds him. “I swear. Well, I don’t  _ really  _ swear. But I have friends who swear. Rick swears all the time.”

“And as long as he’s not saying it to his teachers, that’s his prerogative.” Now Mr. Dugan’s looking out the window. “You know I can’t let you walk home again, right? I can drive you back to your place, unless you want to sleep at mine with Courtney. Yolanda’s already over there.”

Beth bites her lip. “...I don’t want to inconvenience anyone…”

“Hey, I’m offering. You mentioned your parents not being home”—Beth blinks, not remembering when she said that even though Chuck provides a helpful replay of a fragment of a sentence said in the middle of her monologue about owl behavior—“and like I said, Yolanda’s already there. I bet Courtney would like it if you came over, too.” He puts his rag down. “Tell you what. Why don’t I take you to stop by your place and you can drop off the owl and grab your stuff, and then I’ll bring you back to my house?”

She realizes she really,  _ really  _ wants to go. She  _ likes  _ Courtney and Yolanda. She likes Rick, too, but maybe the reason he’s not there is because he doesn’t want to go to sleepovers. Maybe she doesn’t like sleepovers, either. She wouldn’t know. But she wants to find out. “If you’re sure it’s okay…”

“‘Course it’s okay.” He starts heading for the door. “C’mon, we should get a move on or else Barbara will feed my leftovers to the dog.”

* * *

Courtney hugs Beth the second they walk through the door, which is nice. Beth likes hugs. She wonders if Doctor Mid-nite liked hugs. She’ll have to remember to ask Chuck later. He’s on her forehead, of course, but he’s not a mind reader. 

“Pat texted and told us you were coming. Is this your stuff?” Courtney nods at the completely full bag in Beth’s arms.

“Yeah. I, um, kind of packed everything? I’ve never been invited to a sleepover before,” Beth says nervously. Some of it had been obvious, like pajamas and a toothbrush and a bonnet and clothes for the next day and a tangle toy in case she needed it. She’d also brought three water bottles, a ball of yarn, several protein bars, and many,  _ many  _ more things she hadn’t been positive about needing. But not the Doctor Mid-nite costume, because that was living at Courtney’s for the time being anyway because Beth didn’t feel comfortable having it at home. (Minus Hootie’s glove and Chuck, obviously.)

Courtney’s bright smile gets a little dimmer. “...Oh. Well, that’s okay. You never know what you’re going to need! Yolanda’s upstairs setting up a movie. I came down to make popcorn. Why don’t you head up there? You already know where my room is.”

Pleased to be given some concrete directions, Beth scrambles up the stairs, leaving her bag beside Yolanda’s (which also looks big! Maybe she brought the right stuff after all) next to Courtney’s bed.

Yolanda nudges Beth with her elbow when she sits beside her and peers at the laptop balanced on her knees. “Hey. You wanna help me pick the movie?”

“Not Fahrenheit 451,” Beth says sagely.

“Alright. Book’s better, anyway.” Yolanda keeps scrolling through Netflix. 

Beth covers her mouth to stifle her laughter as Chuck trills so loudly with excitement that she can hear him even though he’s still not pulled down. She only laughs harder when Courtney comes in the room and shouts “Catlike reflexes!” before hurling a piece of popcorn at Yolanda, who catches it in her mouth seemingly on autopilot before shrieking “Do that again!”

If this is what having friends is like, Beth’s sad she missed out.

Their chosen movie—a D-list action flick involving a lot of exploding cars they made fun of together, Chuck very much included after she puts him over her eyes so he can show her the inconsistencies in the physics—is just finishing its credits crawl when there’s a knock at the window.

“Whoops. Should’ve left that open,” Courtney says, like it’s not November. Ah. Beth can see why Pat was somewhat concerned now. 

She watches as Courtney hops off the bed and opens it before helping Rick climb over the sill and trip on the seat.

Beth waves at him. “Hi Rick! I didn’t know you were coming!”

“Shh!” Rick shakes his head. “Keep your voice down. Pretty sure Pat’ll kill me if he catches me in here.”

“Why?” Beth asks. It’s not like Rick is some random guy. If he were, she’d understand why Mr. Dugan and Mrs. Whitmore would be upset to find out he was in there, but… he’s not! He’s Hourman! He’s trustworthy! Maybe it’s just because they can’t tell Mrs. Whitmore that. “He knows you’re not going to do anything.”

Courtney shuts the window behind Rick. “Still, let’s not risk it, okay? I dunno if Mom and Pat are asleep yet, but Mike definitely isn’t, and he’ll tell them if he thinks something weird is going on.”

Yolanda closes the laptop and sets it aside before climbing off the bed, leaving Beth on it alone. She sits up on her knees, glad she changed into her pajamas before Rick got there, and pushes her goggles up onto her forehead. Yolanda bumps Rick with her shoulder as a greeting. Beth likes that she does that. Tactile contact is good when people are nervous. “Want me to run down and get some food?”

Rick hesitates, kneading his thumb against the space between his ring finger and his pinkie. He scuffles his shoes on the floor. “...Yeah. Thanks.”

“I’ll grab you another water bottle too.” She shoots him a thumbs up and slips downstairs, careful to close the door behind her.

Beth studies Rick. His shirt is bulging where the hourglass is tucked under it, just over his heart. His hands are still twitching, and she moves hers in time with him. There must be a way to do this without getting him in trouble, right?

“We should set up a rotation,” she says when Yolanda gets back with what’s left of some lasagna, a napkin, a fork and a knife, a glass of juice, and two full plastic water bottles. “My parents aren’t home most nights, you can come stay with me. If you don’t want to or you can’t or something then we can find a way to make sure you always have food. If you’d like.”

“I don’t need—” Rick snaps, only to cut himself off when Yolanda glares at him. “I—look, I’m nobody’s  _ charity case—” _

“Beth knows,” Courtney says, trying to mediate. “She’s just trying to make sure things work out. I think it’s a good idea.”

“Or maybe we could convince Mr. Dugan to give you a job at the garage?” Beth muses. She flicks each of her fingers on her left hand in turn. “That way it wouldn’t look weird when you spend too much time in there. Maybe he’d even pay you. And then you could use working late there as an excuse to not go home if you need one.” She looks up. “How’s that?”

“That’s a great idea.” Yolanda looks at Rick, who’s awkwardly sitting down in the window seat to eat his lasagna. Beth preens at the praise. “What do you think? I bet Pat would go along with it, but you’d have to get mother-henned by him if you said yes, so…”

Rick takes a few bites of his lasagna. He must’ve been hungry. Usually he doesn’t eat the food in front of them, just saves it. “God. Fine. But Courtney’s gonna pitch it.”

“Sure thing—”

Another loud and sharp series of knocks comes from the window. 

Rick shoots halfway across the room to stand with them in the blink of an eye, the container of lasagna still clutched in his hands even as he lifts them to try to grab the hourglass. A little humming sound comes from under Courtney’s bed and she crouches with her hand out just in case. Yolanda puts her fists up.

Beth heads straight for the window and opens it with some difficulty. 

“You found me!” She laughs as Hootie takes the opportunity to hop down into the house. She pets his head and scratches around his horns. “You’re such a good bird! Yes, you are!”

“Okay, that is pretty cool,” Yolanda admits from her position of “suddenly right behind Beth and speaking almost directly in her ear.” Beth only manages to stop herself from flinching by clenching her fingers into Hootie’s feathers. “Can I pet it? Him?”

“I  _ think  _ so.” Hootie’s content and he probably caught a snack on the way over, so he shouldn’t be feeling  _ too  _ grumpy, and an owl’s strength is in its talons (over four hundred pounds per square inch for a mature male Eurasian Eagle Owl!) not its beak so it probably wouldn’t be too bad if he bit her, but she doesn’t want Yolanda to get  _ hurt  _ on her watch by an animal that’s her responsibility.

Yolanda reaches out and slowly strokes her hand down the back of Hootie’s head. He half-closes his eyes, content, and Beth taps the side of her foot carefully against Yolanda’s, excited. She  _ knew  _ he’d do a good job.

Two more hands reach over her shoulder to pet him as Courtney runs her fingers along the edge of Hootie’s facial disk and Rick hesitantly prods at his fluffy chest with one finger. 

“I knew he’d like you,” Courtney whispers. “I  _ knew  _ it. I told you, you’re super likable. He totally loves you. Pat was terrified of him, I don’t think he’s been getting a whole lot of attention since Doctor Mid-nite died.”

_ “I’d  _ never be brave enough to just walk up and take an owl home with me,” Yolanda says.

Rick hesitantly cracks a smile behind Beth’s back. “You gotta tell me how you convinced the star-spangled den mother to let you keep it.”

Beth flicks one hand excitedly down by her side as she scratches the back of Hootie’s neck in just the right way to make him coo. The little burbling sound makes Courtney laugh.

Having real friends is kind of a new feeling. But Beth decides it’s a good one.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @augustheart on tumblr and I just really like Beth. I'm also very confused about Hootie's species clearly changing between episodes, since he's a Barred Owl in the photo of the JSA and a Eurasian Eagle-owl in person at the hall. No idea what's up with that. 
> 
> (And for clarification, he's following the sound of her tapping the glove with her fingers, since owls respond better to training by ear because (as I mentioned in the fic) they're farsighted. I'd like to think Beth is shortsighted, just to match.)


End file.
